Elizabeth Firth Manuscripts
Scope and Contents
Diaries and related papers of Elizabeth Firth, recording her life in the Yorkshire village of Thornton in the 1810s and 1820s. The diaries which form the bulk of the collection are of the simplest kind: brief day-to-day records of social and church occasions of a young girl in a small village near Bradford and at boarding school near Wakefield. Their principal interest lies in the references to members of the Brontë family with whom Elizabeth was acquainted, and the collection includes a letter from Charlotte Brontë to Elizabeth Firth.
The collection also includes a pedigree of descendants of Elizabeth Firth, the Moore Smith and Franks families, compiled by George Charles Moore Smith, her grandson, who became Professor of English Language and Literature from 1896 to 1924, successively at Firth College, University College, and the University of Sheffield as the institution progressed to full university status in 1905.
Transcript and notes relating to the collection are available in 'External Documents' below.
Dates
- Creation: 1812 - 1961
Creator
- Firth, Elizabeth, c1797-1837 (Person)
- Smith, George Charles Moore, 1858 - 1940 (Person)
Conditions Governing Access
Available by appointment. Diary transcripts available under External Documents below.
Biographical / Historical
Elizabeth Firth lived at Kipping House at Thornton, near Bradford, to which village the Brontë Family moved in 1815 when Patrick Brontë became curate there. Elizabeth was then 18 years old; her father, John Scholefield Firth, was a doctor; her mother had died in an accident the previous year. A friendship rapidly developed between Elizabeth and Maria Brontë, and both father and daughter were asked to become godparents to the Brontës daughter Elizabeth. In 1820 the Brontës moved to Haworth, and the following year Maria died. In December 1821 Patrick Brontë proposed marriage to Elzabeth Firth, a proposal which is thought to have led to a rupture in her relations with the Brontë family of almost two years before the relationship was resumed. Elizabeth married the Rev. James Clarke Franks in September 1824.
Extent
1 Box(es)
Language of Materials
English
Custodial History
Donated by Douglas Hamer, Senior Lecturer in English Literature, University of Sheffield, in 1963. Douglas Hames was given the papers by the surviving sisters of Professor Moore Smith, grandson of Elizabeth Firth, c1940.
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Originally listing prepared by Lawrence Aspden. Updated by Eleanor Mulkeen-Parker, Nov 2022.
- Date
- November 2022
- Description rules
- International Standard for Archival Description - General
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the Special Collections and Archives Repository
Western Bank Library
University of Sheffield
Western Bank
Sheffield South Yorkshire S10 2TN United Kingdom
+44 (0) 114 222 7299
lib-special@sheffield.ac.uk